Orenda did not see the armor spring to cover Klin, because she was busy trying to protect herself from the torrent of water rushing toward her. It froze in the air, and the icy daggers melted with the force of her own fiery blast. She looked to the place where Mary Sue and Sonny had fallen, and realized that they were, for the moment, safe.

Xanrda must have followed her eyeline, because she sneered, raised a hand, and directed it toward the unconscious siblings.

She was not happy when nothing happened.

But Orenda did not have time to take any petty glee from the empress’s emotions, because the Emerald Knight was upon her with his sword raised, and he tried to plunge it into her heart.

The sword stopped before it could make contact.

This vessel has been chosen by the Sacred Staff, master. The sword said. I will allow no harm to come to our vessel.

The Emerald Knight drew back and tried again, but again the sword stalled.

Orenda raised a hand and let out a torrent of flame in his direction, but the Knight was so damn fast! He didn’t even back away from her- he flipped back and away from the flames, in his full armor, and as Orenda watched his hands hit the floor, watched him spring backwards in a series of backflips, moving faster than she could cast, she had to admit that she was impressed. Impressed but not frightened.

She had set nearly everything in the room on fire, the fine tapestries, the carpet, the buffet tables- and the room was filling with smoke. Fortunately, the ceiling was high, and Orenda was not particularly concerned about the damage.

Until she watched the curtains burn.

She saw beyond them the terrified kitchen staff, the humans running for their lives deeper into the castle.

She thought that the guards probably wouldn’t let them outside- and even if they got outside, where would they go? Into the storm?

She was staring at the destruction when the Emerald Knight came for her again. He was brandishing a different sword this time, a curved sword like the ones Orenda had seen in her book about the fire elves. He moved so quickly, and tried to plunge this one into her heart as well, but as the blade touched the fire flowing over her it melted away to nothing.

“What?” He cursed, “Why? The armor’s so much weaker on her than it was the last time! This should work! Come on! Fuck’s sake!”

“Stop attacking me!” Orenda demanded.

“Stop trying to kill my wife!” The Emerald Knight demanded, reached into the bag at his hip, and pulled out a battle hammer that could have never fit inside of it.

That was interesting.

“I have to save the princess!” The Emerald Knight screamed as he brought the hammer down upon her head, but it, too, melted with the heat of her armor, and Orenda thought that if she was that hot, he shouldn’t be able to stand so close to her.

She reached out a hand and laid it gently upon his chest.

He didn’t burn.

“They won’t let me kill you,” She said and thought of how every time she had attacked him she had burned away the armor, but hadn’t actually hurt Klin himself. “No harm can come to the vessels. We can’t hurt each other.”

“I can kill anything that lives!” The Emerald Knight argued, “It’s the only thing I can actually do!”

“Kill the assassin!” Xandra shrieked, “Carve out her heart!”

“I’m trying,” Klin mumbled, and to Xandra he shouted, “I’m sorry!”

Orenda ignored the Emerald Knight and his ineffective attacks, and closed the distance between herself and Xandra.

“You’re throwing water on a grease fire!” Orenda snarled at her, “You will boil when you die!”

“Ruvean, run!” Klin said as he dug around in his bag. “Where the fuck is my grappling hook?”

It is in ill repair, master. The sword answered. You used it to defeat the great ocean spirit, underwater. You left it in the storeroom.

The Emerald Knight cursed, and Orenda understood. He didn’t understand. All he saw was an assassin with the strength of a god marching toward his wife. He would never understand.

“Get out of my home!” The monster that was once Xandra told Orenda.

“You’re not a water elf,” Orenda said, “You can’t sustain that form. You haven’t been chosen by a god. I have. You are going to die today. I am not a person. I am all your sins, come to put an end to you. And you are afraid of me.”

Orenda reached out and grabbed the glowing stone in the middle of the empress’s chest. The water of her armor was as icy as the sea in the Frozen North, and it sizzled and popped, but could not put out the flames that surrounded Orenda.

“Orenda!” She jerked her head to see the Emerald Knight standing with his sword raised over the prone bodies of the Brigaddons. “Stop it! Stop it now! Leave her alone!”

“Don’t!” Orenda screamed. They were immune to magic, but that sword seemed to function in its capacity as a sword even without any kind of magical attunement. It was still sharp and heavy; it had marred Gareth’s face, and killed half her family.

“Leave her alone!” The Emerald Knight demanded.

Orenda released her grip on the stone, and took a step back.

“Take off the armor!” The Emerald Knight ordered.

Orenda concentrated as hard as she could, and the armor fell away.

“Now step away from my wife!”

Orenda stepped off the platform slowly, and took calculated, delicate steps toward the monster. She thought of Gareth again, of how he had faced this monster and lived, of how he had watched it mercilessly kill, of how Felearn had told her the army was so afraid of him they would kill on his command, of all the stories she had heard about the monster.

“Klin,” she said, “Aren’t you tired of being a monster?”

The Emerald Knight was silent, so she took another step forward.

“When I heard all the legends about you,” She said, “They never sounded real. They never sounded true. It seemed impossible that one man could do so much. You’re broken. You’re tired. Your home is under attack. But you made a decision, earlier. You decided not to take that final stone from its resting place at the temple on top of the world.”

“I won’t… I can’t,” His voice broke, and Orenda knew who she was speaking to, “I can’t… let it happen to anyone else. Look around, Orenda. This place is on fire… people are dying… you… you people are destroying everything! I have to save the princess!”

“There is no princess,” Orenda said, “You’re making a mistake. You’re making one more mistake in a long line of mistakes. And you know that. Your wife will die with or without me. She’s dying now. Casting outside her element has driven her mad.”

“Klin!” Xandra yelled, “Kill this madwoman! She’s come to destroy us!”

“I… I don’t know how,” Orenda knew he was crying, though she could not see his face under the helmet, “I don’t know how to… you promised… you promised you would kill me!”

“I will kill the Emerald Knight,” Orenda vowed, “Such a horrible person does not deserve to live. But… one can not kill a legend alone. I need help.”

“You… you’re… you’re trying to get inside my head!” The Emerald Knight shouted. “Stop it! Get out of my head!”

“Klin!” Xandra called again, “Help me!”

“I’m not doing anything!” Orenda snapped.

“Klin!” Xandra shouted again, and the repetitiveness of it began to grate on Orenda’s nerves.

“Sir,” Ruvean had appeared again, and following him were more Urillian soldiers than Orenda knew existed. They stood in rank behind him, and Orenda saw that some of them looked no older than Klin had appeared to be.

Ruvean came running up to stand beside Klin and asked, “What do we do?”

“Kill the assassin!” Xandra ordered.

“Stand back!” The Emerald Knight said, and they did not seem to know what to do with the conflicting information. “Don’t swarm the Crimson Mage! You’ll all burn when you die! She holds the heart of a god!”

“What do we do?” Ruvean asked again.

“I… I don’t…” The Emerald Knight said, “Evacuate the castle. Take everyone to safety.”

“Sir, there is no safety. The entire fleet on the coast has been sank, and we’re getting reports that more terrorists have arrived. More of those wererabbits have been spotted outside the gates, we’ve received a scry from the battalion sent to the fire continent that they can’t dock anywhere- the sea rages and now that I know there’s a djinn involved I believe anyone who goes near the place will sink. There is nowhere to evacuate. What do we do?”

“Shit,” Klin said, “We’re… we’re losing? Glenlen was right? We’re losing?”

“The day is not lost,” Ruvean said.

“Ok, ok, let me think,” Klin said, “Take the princess and evacuate to-”

“We aren’t going to run!” Xandra’s armor fell away as she marched down from the platform, “Not from one little girl and a warren of rabbits! You have killed gods! Plunge that sword into her heart! Kill this intruder, then we return to the Frozen North and retrieve the final stone!”

“If I take that stone out of the temple!” The Emerald Knight shouted back at her, “I will awaken the Demigorge!”

“That isn’t real, you idiot!” Xandra yelled at him, “You’ve been manipulated by a demon! How can you be that stupid! You’re better than that! You know better! Why must we go over this? Why must we go over and over this!?”

Orenda turned to look at the guards and realized that though most of them were shocked, Ruvean looked as if he saw this same thing play out, over and over, every day.

“You’re shouting again!” Xandra shrieked, “How much of that can I be expected to put up with? How much can a body take? I’ve given you everything! All I’ve ever asked you to do is keep me safe! Kill this assassin!”

“That’s not all you’ve asked me to do!” The Emerald Knight shouted, “That’s just the only thing I’ve ever done right, so now it’s all you think I can do! I can’t keep anyone safe! They’re all dead, Xandra! All of them! One by one they dropped off while I went all over the world trying to find these artifacts! All I know is death! I’m a fucking monster!”

“I won’t have that blasphemy in my house!” Xandra shouted, “You’re not a monster, you’re the Chosen One! You saved us all! You saved me! You’re a hero!”

“I’m a monster!”

“I don’t reckon,” Ruvean turned to Orenda, “That I could simply ask you to leave? It’s… it’s a bit, well, on fire in here. It would give us one safe place.”

“No,” Orenda said.

“It’s worth asking,” Ruvean shrugged, “I’ve found that kindness sometimes works better than violence.”

“I can’t keep living like this!” The Emerald Knight bellowed, “I can’t do it! I’m going to die from it! I ain’t been right for centuries! That thing is eating away at you! It’s killing you! And… and… YOU’RE NOT RIGHT!”

“You just don’t understand,” Xandra said.

“Stop it!” The Emerald Knight screamed, “I can’t… let you… let me say it! Let me get it out! Before you start twisting it up! You’re not RIGHT, you’re just SMART! And you think… you think that I can’t… I can’t do anything because I’m stupid! That I can’t see things!”

“I have never said you were stupid!” Xandra said.

“But you think it!” The Emerald Knight screamed, and Orenda stepped away and grabbed each of the Brigaddons by the collars of their sterilite undershirts, and began to drag them in the direction of the now deserted kitchen. Ruvean stared after her as if he believed that his plan of ‘politely ask the terrorists to leave’ had worked after all.

“I have never thought-” Xandra said, but she was cut off.

“It ain’t gonna work!” Klin screamed, “It’s never going to work! We can’t unite all the stones, we can’t unite all of elvenkind because all of elvenkind HATES me! They tell their kids stories about me like I’m a goddamn boogieman!”

“You’re hysterical,” Xandra told him, “We don’t have time for your nonsense dramatics!”

“You’re not listening to me! You don’t never listen to me!”

“Because you don’t never say nothing!” Xandra shouted, “You stay dead quiet for months and then blow up! How is anybody supposed to react to that?”

“Not by reading my mind! Look I… I did talk to Magnus, and he thinks… he said that… that this relationship was toxic for me-”

“A demon told you-”

“I didn’t want to do this in front of god and everybody but STOP INTERRUPTING ME!”

“Stop interrupting me!” Xandra screamed back, “And stop getting shitfaced drunk at every single social gathering! I’ve had to hide you away, you’re such an embarrassment! Half the court don’t even know your name! All you ever do is hide away and cry, and moan, and complain about how hard your life is- you were a peasant farmer! I led you to that sword! I broke centuries of tradition to marry you! I have given you every single thing that you have! So do not come up in here and act like I am somehow the one who is using you!”

“I didn’t never want none of that!” Klin shouted, “All I ever wanted was someone, one person, anyone, who understood- who didn’t look at me like I was a ‘Chosen One’, like I had to be something. You didn’t give me that! The sword didn’t give me that! I don’t… I don’t want this anymore! But we’re so deep in it now! What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Are you crying?” Xandra asked.

“No,” Klin said, though he very clearly was.

“Klin, I need you to pull yourself together, kill this assassin, and then go out there and save our people from whatever fresh hell the universe has thrown at us!”

“It ain’t random,” Klin said, “I’m being punished for my sins. This is… this is cause and effect… and if you don’t get out you’ll get caught in the crossfire.”

“I CAN’T TAKE THIS!” Xandra shrieked, and Orenda actually agreed with her.

Xandra clutched her head so hard her perfectly manicured nails tore at her flesh, and began to chant, “I can’t take this. I can’t take this. I can’t take this.”

“I’m… you’re right,” Klin said through the tears Orenda knew he had to have under his helmet, “God, you’re right I… I did it again… in front of… I’m sorry. Xandra, I’m so sorry!”

But she wasn’t listening, she had folded into herself and was still chanting. The Emerald Knight reached out a hand to lay on her shoulder- and she shrieked.

Orenda watched each and every one of the soldiers around her begin to sputter, cough, convulse- and then to leak. Blood poured from them, not just from the places would would imagine blood should pour, not just from their mouths, their noses, their eyes, but also from their flesh, seeping into their pristine uniforms, staining the green so dark it appeared black.

“RUVEAN!” the armor of the Emerald Knight fell away, and Klin ran, knelt, and grabbed at the convulsing, spasming husk of the old man.

“Stop it!” Klin demanded, “Stop it! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Orenda pulled the staff from her back, leaped over the smoldering, overturned table, and began sprinting across the ballroom.

Klin was doubled over the body in his arms, his face buried in the old man’s chest, when the blood that had seeped from their bodies began to collect. It moved as the water from the streams had, and collected around Klin’s weeping form as he continued to chant.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Then he said nothing, because he was picked up from his position, and floated, suspended, in a column of blood.

“Breath this, water elf,” Xandra said, glaring up him with her outstretched hand. “I’m tired of it! I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?! You want this to be my fault? You want to see crazy? I’ll show you crazy!”

Klin struggled inside the column, and Orenda saw that he was trying to swim to the edges of it, but that his eyes were closed, that he was trying not to take in the scene before him.

But Orenda was not concerned with the Emerald Knight; he only existed as the distraction she needed as she closed the distance between herself and Xandra, and swung the staff for all it was worth. The sword, Orenda had realized, may have been sterilite, may have been useless for casting magic, but it was still a sword. And the staff was still a heavy, metal pole, and Orenda had learned to know her environment.

It hit the side of Xandra’s head with a satisfying, loud, and weighted crack.